Dirt
by Astern
Summary: In the early years of the epidemic, Joel and Tommy's struggle for survival triggers the slow deterioration of their relationship.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

_October 1, 2013 – 8:01am_

The screeching static of the radio felt oddly calming. It was something that Tommy had never been able to stand before. He'd have been scrolling through channels by now, looking for something clearer, something with less talking and more music. But now, the squelching voice of the announcer felt like a ragged reminder that the world had not yet ended. Not yet.

_The number of confirmed deaths has passed two hundred. The Governor has called a state of emergency and mobilized the National Guard to evacuate stranded residents and secure areas overrun by the sick._

There was a ripple of responses from the group of people huddled around the old battery-powered radio. Some sounded disbelieving, others afraid. Someone snorted. Tommy had to catch himself from doing the same as disappointment fell. The message was a recording – playing now for the third day in a row.

_Reports of bodies lying in the streets have fueled widespread panic, especially as city centers struggle—_

The recorded report was suddenly drowned out by a scream behind Tommy. Those gathered around the radio looked up and towards a middle-aged woman who sat huddled on the ground, cradling the head of a man who lay very still. Two teenage boys stood beside her, mouths open in stunned silence. Their mother's anguished cries cut through the humdrum of moans and quiet sobbing that formed the background noise of the large triage, but those gathered around the radio quickly looked away with expressions of mixed guilt and pain.

Tommy watched the woman a second longer than the rest, but he too dropped his gaze. He could hear the woman pleading for help – with a nearby doctor, with her sons, with the dead man in her lap. Instinct still gnawed at him, pushed at him to go to the poor woman and comfort her, but it was an instinct that was already dying a swift death. This woman's cries for help would eventually fade to anguished sobs and then soon another wretched person would cry out the same as she had. And others would follow.

_…warn that it may be some time before vaccination tests yield any results. Citizens are urged instead to undertake their own precautions to avoid infection, including avoiding major population centers…_

Tommy felt a mix of anger and desolation roil in the pit of his stomach and he turned away from the group crowded around the radio. The triage unit spread away from him in three directions, a huge series of white canvas tents, portable floodlights, and generators. The grind and whirr of the generators went some way to drowning out the human noise in the place, but the air still thrummed with the sounds of people dying, or wanting to die, or of their loved ones begging them not to. Tommy felt a shiver run down the length of his spine and suppressed the urge to cover his ears.

He weaved around plastic tables stacked with medical bins and stepped out of the path of a pair of orderlies carrying a stretcher covered in a white sheet. People lay on the ground and on cots set up under the open sky. Others leaned against cement barriers and the sides of dusty Honeybuckets. These were the uninjured and uninfected. Many had come with sick or hurt loved ones, but many others simply had nowhere else to go.

Tommy passed them all and entered one of the medical tents. He made his way to the back, where a thin partition separated off four beds set close together. The nearest was occupied by the bulky figure of a man, but thick bandages around his shoulder and torso made him look oddly misshapen.

The lack of color in Joel's face was thrown into sharp relief by his dark hair and beard and by the angry red cuts across his face and the bridge of his nose. Yet when his eyes flicked open at the sound of Tommy's approach, his expression was clear. Haunted, yes, but lucid. He had not been sleeping.

"Well?" he said simply as Tommy drew up a folding metal chair and sat down.

Tommy shook his head. "Same recording. If they're doing anything, they either don't wanna announce it or aren't able to anymore."

Joel closed his eyes again and breathed deep and slow. He lay on his side with his arms crossed, looking like a man determined to shut out the world merely by closing his eyes and clenching his jaw. Tommy glanced down at his hands and swallowed.

"Joel, listen," he said, leaning forward and lowering his voice. "We gotta think about what we're gonna do here." Joel did not reply, nor did he open his eyes. Tommy continued. "This…I mean, more'n more people are comin' in every day. I'm just thinkin' it might be better to clear out to somewhere quieter 'til they get things under control again. Joel?"

Still Joel did not reply. He had been like this since his fever had broken the morning before. Distraught had been Tommy's first thought, but it wasn't even anything so passionate. Disconnected. That was the better word for it. It was as if his brother had checked out and might never return.

Tommy sighed and crossed his arms. He glanced up as several nurses pulled back the partition and wheeled in a woman on a gurney, transferring her to the bed beside Joel's. The woman's breath came in ragged gasps and her eyes were open, wide and sightless as she stared up at the canvas roof above her. It was the same despondency that shown in Joel's eyes.

Outside, someone else cried for help. And once again, no one could give it.

* * *

Joel had cried. Tommy had never heard his brother cry before, but Joel had cried as he rocked back and forth holding Sarah. Eventually, his tears had hushed to stifled gasps and his rocking had stilled to a rhythmic nodding, as if he could not bring himself to stop the perpetual motion. And yet he held Sarah until the first light of a new and horrific world crept over the horizon.

He had not even been able to bury her, though he had tried. When they laid her into a small grave dug with only a knife taken from the dead soldier's belt, Joel had gathered up a handful of dirt. He had stood on the edge, looking down. Loose grit trickled out from between his fingers. It bounced across her bloodied shirt and checkered pajama bottoms. _I…can't. I'm sorry, Tommy, you gotta…I can't._

So Tommy had buried her and Joel's tears had dried up, replaced by emptiness.

* * *

_October 1, 2013 – 1:37pm_

"I'm just sayin'. Whoever got it first wasn't bit themselves. Couldna been, since then they wouldn't be the first one sick. So how'd they get it, huh?"

Tommy awoke with the words halfway engulfed in a dream. He had been dozing on and off, still sat uncomfortably in the folding metal chair. Joel did not appear to have moved, but Tommy could see the bandages on his chest and shoulder rise and fall slowly. Blinking and yawning, Tommy straightened, looking for the source of the words that had wakened him.

"Mr. Wendell, I've told you already, the government has scientists already working to answer that question."

It was a nurse and an elderly man. The man did not appear to be injured, for he was following the middle-aged woman as she checked the clipboards of several of the beds near to Joel's.

"But y'need to know _now_, don't you? You're corallin' off those who've been bit, but what if there's folks in here who've got it and ain't been bit? You just got us all in here like cattle. We could be spreadin' it to each other and not even realize!"

The man's voice was rising and the nurse appeared increasingly uncomfortable. She left off inspecting a clipboard to face the man. Her voice lowered to a gentle soothing tone. "Mr. Wendell, please calm down. The secure zone is safe. The army is conducting full medical examinations of everyone who comes in."

The elderly man's eyes widened and his face scrunched angrily. "Y'don't even know what it is! What are you examining? What're you lookin' for? Someone sick could be sittin' right there!" He gestured angrily towards Tommy as an example, whom he had caught watching the exchange. The nurse paled at the man's increasingly loud hysteria, clearly concerned about the number of worried faces now turning to look their way.

Tommy started to rise, but as he did so the partition was jerked back to reveal two soldiers in full body armor. One of them held up a hand towards the elderly man. "Sir, you need t'calm down. There's no need for all this fuss."

"Don't patronize me, son," the man replied, pointing an accusatory finger. "I ain't stupid. Now I'm askin' the lady a question that you army boys didn't wanna answer. And it's a good question that everyone here oughta be askin'. How'd this whole damn thing start, anyway? Huh? Somebody had it first and they didn't get it by bein' bit, so who's t'say there ain't someone in here right now who ain't been bit, but who's sick anyway?"

"Sir, this ain't the place, all right? People are shook up enough as it is. Why don't you just come on outside with us?" The soldiers positioned themselves on either side of the man.

"No, this is _important!_"

The elderly man shoved at one of the soldiers in a fit of frenzy, but they moved quickly to restrain him. Each soldier took one of his flailing arms and placed a hand on his shoulder, maneuvering him as quickly as they could to exit the crowded tent. They were gone in a matter of seconds, but his hysterical shouting was still audible outside as a nervous silence settled over those still within. The nurse drew a shaky breath and raised her voice so all those within the medical tent could hear.

"Y'all don't worry now. He's just feelin' a little overwhelmed. Everything's fine."

Then she too left.

Tommy sat down again, feeling fairly rattled himself. He leaned forward onto his knees and ran a hand through his hair. Now more than ever, he could feel the weight and strain of the past few days. This place was beginning to feel toxic, like the hopelessness was seeping into his bones.

When he looked up, he saw Joel watching him in silence.

"Hey," Tommy said in surprise, sitting up.

Joel didn't immediately reply, but he looked at Tommy and then out through the pulled back partition to the rest of the medical tent. Finally, he mumbled quietly, "It's a good question."

"What?" Tommy asked, confused.

Joel shifted, grunting as he moved. He looked back at Tommy. "What he said," he answered after a moment, voice rough from disuse.

"Oh," Tommy nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. I'm sure everybody's tryin' to figure out how it started though, the scientists'n all."

Joel shook his head. "No. What he said about how people are gettin' sick. About not bein' bit."

Tommy gave a nod of recognition, but only shrugged after. He wasn't sure what to say, but he also half feared that offering some sort of explanation might cause Joel to stop talking again. This was the most liveliness that Joel had shown since they had arrived at the triage. He had said barely two words together for the past three days.

Joel shifted again, rolling onto his back and rubbing a hand across his eyes as someone began crying outside. "I don't know," he sighed. "Maybe it's somethin' in the food or water. Maybe it's somethin' we're breathin'."

Outside the crying grew louder, but Joel lapsed again into silence. He looked tired. Part of it was the dark shadows under his eyes, but more than that, it was that the skin of his face was slack, like someone too weary to arrange the muscles of his face into any definable expression. Tommy swallowed and leaned forward, eager to keep Joel animated. "So how you feelin'?"

"Fine," he answered abruptly. Yet the tone of his voice reassured Tommy. That quick sort of brush off was terribly reminiscent of the Joel Tommy knew. When his brother turned back to look at him, Tommy noted too how his brows drew together in the way they always did before he sat down to talk business.

"We should go," Joel said quietly. At Tommy's questioning look, he added, "Get outta this place."

To that Tommy nodded, pulling his chair closer to Joel and likewise lowering his voice. "Kinda what I was thinkin'. You that spooked by what that guy said?"

Joel shrugged. "Just…everything. Cause of what he said, cause there'll be others like him. Folks gettin' hysterical." He paused, lowering his voice further and fixing Tommy with a serious look. "And cause eventually someone's gonna ask why they pulled a military-grade slug outta me."

"I explained when we got here," Tommy said, shaking his head. "Told 'em some guy with an assault rifle shot at us, thinkin' we were sick. It's Texas," he added with a snort. "Half the goddamn state's probably got assault rifles."

Joel did not seem reassured. "Maybe. But once things calm down and they start pickin' up the pieces again, someone's gonna start askin' questions. Or someone's gonna find that soldier and wonder who put a bullet in his head."

Tommy felt himself involuntarily suck in a quick breath at Joel's mention of that night. It was only five days ago, but within the safe confines of the triage, Tommy had almost successfully buried the memory. Now the images raced back to him. A gas mask jerking suddenly from the force of a bullet. The smell of gunpowder. Blood strewn across the gravel. All flashed before him in a heartbeat. The memory of Sarah dying left Tommy empty with grief, but those were not the images of that night that most haunted him.

It had happened so quickly and felt so necessary at the time, but what Joel said made sense. As bad as things seemed now, eventually the government would regain some measure of control over this epidemic. And when that happened, there was no guarantee the law would be forgiving of individual actions taken under extraordinary circumstances.

"Okay then," Tommy said. "What do we do?"

"Do you still have my gun?"

Tommy shook his head. "They wouldn't let me into the place with it. Confiscated it at the fence."

Joel made an irritated face and rolled his eyes. With emotions already pricked by memories, Tommy felt his temper abruptly flare at his brother's annoyed expression. "Well what the hell was I supposed to do, Joel? You had a goddamn bullet in you. You were burnin' up with fever. And I'd probably have killed you if I'd tried to take it out."

Joel waved a hand dismissively. "Nevermind. Probably better anyway. They can't tie it back to us now if anyone ever finds that soldier. But Tommy, if we're goin' back out there, we gotta have a gun. Both of us."

"Well what do you want me to do? Steal one?" Tommy asked the question as if it weren't truly an option, but Joel's face was dead serious as he gave a single nod. Tommy sat up in surprise, his brows knitting together.

"If that's what it takes," Joel muttered quietly.

Tommy opened his mouth to reply, but found no words. He made a disbelieving noise and shook his head, his voice sinking to a whisper. "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"Then are you hearin' yourself? You're talkin' about stealin' from the military."

"Tommy, _listen_," Joel snapped back. He too was whispering, but there was no mistaking the terse older brother tone in his voice. It usually either ignited their arguments or put an end to them before they could begin. "Look around you. Things are gonna be different for awhile. Right now, we gotta look after ourselves."

Tommy sat back, his shoulders slumping as he sank against the metal back of his chair. He shook his head in continuing disbelief. "Fine," he said finally, with resignation. "Fine. I'll find us somethin'."

At least stealing a few guns was less likely to leave him with nightmares.

* * *

_October 1, 2013 – 7:12pm_

The military transport truck was not being watched. It had pulled into a side street just outside the main triage area and unloaded several crates of food that the soldiers were now distributing to a line of people at the center of the triage. Floodlights lit the area, but outside the triage itself, night had fallen.

Tommy cast a final glance back at the soldiers handing out sandwiches and MREs, then ducked out of the glare of the floodlights. He made straight for the truck, glancing around him to make sure he was not seen. In the darkness outside the triage, no one was watching.

The truck was unlocked, though it made more noise than Tommy was comfortable with when he opened the driver-side door. Inside was dark, no helpful dome light to illuminate the cab. Instead, Tommy had to wait for a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the murky interior. He could make out the battered seats and steering column. Crawling into the cab, he began to feel his way around, checking under and on top of the seats, around the gear stick, and even up on the ceiling.

He found what he was looking for under the passenger seat. There were two handguns: a .99 mm pistol that looked military-issue and a .357 revolver that Tommy suspected had been confiscated or found on the street at some point because a chunk of the handle was missing. Both were loaded, but he found no spare ammunition. These would have to do for now.

Tommy climbed down from the cab and shut the door as quietly as he could manage. No one appeared to have noticed him. As for the two guns, he tucked them into an old gym bag that he had found abandoned behind a line of Honeybuckets. Also inside the bag were a few rolls of gauze, alcohol swabs, medical tape, and a small bottle of antibiotics – all that he had been able to quietly pocket in preparation for Joel's medical needs once they left the triage. Their plan was to leave before dawn the next day. Tommy was uncertain if the military was actually letting anyone leave the safe zone, but they did not intend to find out. They would slip away on their own to avoid the risk of prying questions.

As Tommy neared the floodlights again, however, a cry shattered the evening air. No, not even a cry, for it was not a sound of grief. It was one of panic. Someone was screaming.

He could see those waiting in the food line begin to look around in alarm and the soldiers distributing rations were suddenly grabbing guns and running in the direction of one of the medical tents. Joel's tent. His pulse quickening, Tommy began running after them, boots crunching gravel as he reentered the floodlit triage. Joel's tent felt painfully far away and Tommy found himself pushing and shoving his way through the crowd of people assembled at the center of the triage.

"Move! C'mon people, outta my way!" he yelled as he weaved around bewildered onlookers. There were shouts of panic from some as they tried to get farther away from the commotion. Others were running towards the tent in question, either out of curiosity or hoping to help.

The gunshots rang out just as Tommy reached the mouth of the tent. A quick smattering of automatic rifle fire echoed loudly across the triage, bringing screams of terror from those both within and outside the tent. Tommy fought against a sudden wave of people attempting to flee the tent's interior.

"Joel! Joel!" Tommy's cries were lost amidst the screaming crowd, but he moved to the side of the tent, buffeted by people pushing past him.

The crowd parted for a moment and Tommy caught a glimpse of the scene at the center of the makeshift facility. The body of a woman lay face up, bloody gunshot wounds staining her chest and stomach. Half a dozen soldiers surrounded the dead woman, but several others – a doctor and two people who looked like patients – sat trembling on the ground not far from the corpse. Each appeared to be nursing bloody limbs.

The crowd was thinning some and Tommy could make out pieces of what the soldiers were saying.

"—checked for bites? Who examined her?"

"—said she was unresponsive. If she was infected—"

"—you the only ones she got a hold of?"

"Any family? Anyone she came in with?"

"—wasn't bitten, then how'd she turn?"

"Anyone else who's been unresponsive?"

"—cause a fuckin' panic out there—"

"—additional resources to check everyone else—"

They all seemed to be talking over and across each other, simultaneously grilling the witnesses to the incident and barking orders and information into their radios.

Tommy made a beeline for the back of the tent where Joel's bed was. As he did so, he got a better look at the dead woman and realized with a jolt that he recognized her. It was the woman who had been set up in the bed beside Joel's that very morning. Tommy drew a quick breath and looked away, desperate now to find his brother.

The partition at the rear of the large medical tent had been torn back, presumably by the infected woman or her victims as they fled. Tommy's breath caught in his throat as he saw Joel's bed thrown on its side, but a ripple of relief spread through him just a second later as he caught sight of Joel beneath it, struggling to lift the heavy medical bed off of himself with his unbandaged arm.

"Joel!" Tommy sighed gratefully, immediately bending down to pull the bed off of his brother.

"Tommy," Joel grunted with equal relief. "They shot her?"

Tommy nodded as he took Joel's good hand and started to pull his brother to his feet. "You were right, Joel," he explained quickly but quietly. "She was sick. She wasn't bitten, but she had it."

"I know, goddammit," Joel growled in response. He roughly jerked his bandaged shoulder and Tommy saw where the thick swath of gauze and cloth had been messily torn apart, as if savaged by a wild animal.

"Holy shit," Tommy breathed, eyes widening. "Did she get you? Did she actually bite you?"

"No!"

Tommy shook his head, breathing fast. "We gotta go, Joel. We gotta go. They got others corralled out there who got bit. If they don't believe you, they're gonna put you into the quarantine with the rest of 'em and once they start turnin'—"

"I know!" Joel cut off Tommy's unnerved rambling with a sharp whisper. "You got the guns?" Tommy nodded. "Then c'mon."

Joel dropped to the ground again, kneeling on one knee and pulling up the edge of the canvas tent. Tommy reached out and pulled up more of the tent to allow Joel to awkwardly maneuver under the canvas using only his good arm for support. Then Tommy too dropped to his knees and crawled under.

It was dark on the backside of the tent. It had been set up against the side of one of several brick office buildings that surrounded the square where the triage was located. Tommy could hear a mix of screaming and shouting in the direction of the floodlights. A litany of diesel engines punctuated the sounds of the crowd and Tommy guessed the military was bringing in reinforcements to control the sudden wave of panic spreading through the already tense triage. Joel started moving to find a way around the brick building they were fenced in by.

"Joel, wait," Tommy whispered, swinging the old gym bag off his shoulder. He pulled out the pistol and tossed it to his brother, who caught it with his good hand. "It's loaded. Couldn't see how many rounds."

"You got a flashlight?" Joel said tersely. Tommy could hear him checking the safety on the gun.

"No, I didn't expect to leave 'til mornin'."

"Nevermind. It don't matter." Joel did not shove the gun into his belt, but held it out as if ready to use it. He paused and looked back at Tommy. Even in the darkness, Tommy could feel the intensity of his brother's expression. He was stealing himself for a return to the world outside the safety of the military-guarded triage, a world that had now had three more days to fall apart since last they had seen it. "Are you good?"

Tommy took a breath and nodded. "I'm good."

"Alright. Let's go then."

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed. :) I anticipate this running in the neighborhood of 10 chapters, but we'll see. Life is pretty busy for me right now, so updates will not be as frequent as I like - please follow the story if you want to be alerted when the next chapter is up. As always, reviews are appreciated!**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_October 2, 2013 – 5:12pm_

"Joel, I don't think anyone's gonna look too closely at one dead soldier."

Joel glanced sidelong at his brother, then nodded softly. "Yeah."

The residential street they stood on was like many they had seen already: abandoned and lonely, with a discomforting mix of the shockingly ordinary and the painfully out of place. Plastic chairs and garden tables sat beneath broken windows. In driveways, cars with doors ajar and luggage spilled angrily out the back were kept company by tidy garbage cans and kids' basketball hoops. And across neatly manicured lawns and white sidewalks, the bodies of the dead lay bloated and stiff.

The street was not strewn with the dead, as some reports had said city streets were, but there were enough scattered bodies to give Tommy a jolt each time he spotted another. Some lay spilling out of cars, others crumpled beneath mailboxes. Many looked to have been torn apart.

Like Joel, Tommy had spent weekends as a kid hunting and visiting their grandparents' farm outside Austin. It was not the gruesome sight of dead things that turned his stomach. It was the time and place. The old world was juxtaposed so freshly against the new and it felt fundamentally, instinctively wrong.

Wrong.

"Jesus, how the hell did this happen?" Joel muttered, not for the first time.

Tommy did not reply.

The triage and safe zone were a day behind them. It had been erected in a town called Leland, notable to Tommy mainly for the big Goodwill that had been built there a few years ago and become his go-to source for old appliances and work shirts. But Leland was small and had quickly turned to rural countryside not long after Tommy and Joel had left the triage. That was fortunate. The sick had been noticeably drawn to the fences and cement barriers that defined the edges of the safe zone, but they had disappeared as soon as Tommy and Joel had begun to leave buildings behind. At least, if they were there, Tommy had not seen them. So far, the sick had left them alone.

"One of these places has t'be empty," Joel said, looking around them. New bandages were wrapped inexpertly around his shoulder, but his voice had the pinched quality of someone deeply weary and too stubborn to admit it.

"Most of 'em, I'd reckon," Tommy replied. "C'mon. One's as good as the next." He started up towards a light brown house whose door stood ajar. An aging station wagon sat locked in the driveway.

"Maybe not that one," Joel muttered tiredly behind him, but whatever misgivings he had were not apparently strong enough to overcome his exhaustion. Tommy seemed not to hear his brother and Joel did not protest again.

Tommy mounted the wooden porch and knocked lightly on the open door. "Hullo? Anyone home?" There was no answer. He pushed against the door, opening it wider, and stepped into a living room with an L-shaped sofa and flower-print curtains. The place had a hint of mustiness, like coming home after an extended vacation.

"I think we're good," he said, looking back at Joel as his brother stepped into the doorway. Yet as Joel's boots scrapped against the entryway floorboards, Tommy heard a scuffling up the stairs to the right of the front door. "Hello?" he called out again, now reaching for the revolver stuffed into his back pocket.

An inhuman screech responded, followed by a thunderous pounding of feet upstairs and the sound of rapid panting, like a dog. Tommy backed away from the stairs and into the living room, eyes growing wide as he pulled the revolver free of his pocket.

"Tommy!" Joel yelled suddenly.

Two figures were bounding down the stairs. Two figures which should have been human, but weren't. They moved in a crouched manner, with fingers and arms curling like an animal's. One was dressed in a woman' sport jacket, the other in slacks and a man's collared shirt.

Joel already had his pistol out and was backing into the living room alongside his brother, but Tommy was shouting at the two creatures as they awkwardly fought each other to maneuver down the stairs at the same time.

"Stop! Wait, stop, we'll shoot! Goddamnit!"

Joel's pistol discharged twice in quick succession, but the bullets only jerked the man's shoulder back twice, stalling him at the bottom of the stairs, but not stopping him. Joel was right-handed, but he was shooting with his uninjured left arm.

"Shoot 'em, goddamnit!" Joel growled urgently between gunshots. He fired twice more and two clouds of red erupted across the man's collared shirt as he tumbled forward and onto his chest. Tommy clenched his teeth as the woman hit the bottom of the stairs. He squeezed the trigger once, then twice. The revolver leapt back in his hand and the woman jerked awkwardly backwards a step before thumping against the wall behind her and sliding to the ground. Blood spray stained the white plaster.

Neither of the sick moved.

Tommy and Joel stood there in silence for a moment, only the smell of gunpowder and their rapid breathing disturbing the still sense of abandonment that quickly filled the empty house again. After a moment and a shaky breath, Tommy lowered his revolver and slowly popped out the cylinder. He could feel the shake in his fingers as he removed the spent cartridges. Three bullets remained.

The movement seemed to bring Joel back into focus. Abruptly, his expression darkened and he shot Tommy a sharp look. "What the hell, Tommy?" he scowled.

"What?" Tommy replied, instantly defensive.

"You can't _hesitate_ like that. They were nearly goddamn on top of us."

"I wasn't gonna shoot 'em 'til I was sure they were sick, Joel."

Joel's eyes narrowed and he frowned angrily. "They were sick, Tommy. Real people don't sound like that."

"Well, I wanted t'be sure. I wanted t'be _sure_, Joel," Tommy said through clenched teeth as he followed his brother. Joel was moving to crouch over the dead man and woman.

Joel shook his head impatiently as he flipped the man over onto his back. "Jesus Christ," he muttered, more to himself than Tommy. He knelt next to the dead man. "Look at his eyes."

The dead man was jowly and graying, probably a middle-aged businessman who had once commuted into Austin during the day and watched the evening news over a glass of wine at night. But now, his face was a ruin. His eyes were shot through with red and tears of blood had welled up and seeped out of the sockets. His pupils were misaligned – his left eye pointed up towards his temple, but his right eye pointed down. Blood had flowed from his nose, trailing down over his lips and chin and spotting his shirt. Pulsing veins stood out across his cheeks and brow like fat purple fingers.

Joel seemed to suppress a shiver and looked back angrily at Tommy. "You sure now?" He scrambled back to his feet, muttering. "Christ. You even suspect, Tommy – you shoot. Cause _that's_ what you get if you're wrong."

Tommy continued brooding over the bodies. His brother left him, moving further into the house to explore, but Tommy stood there in silent frustration, halfway understanding Joel's sentiment and halfway pissed as hell. He did not have long to entertain his irritation, however. Another scream, more distant, suddenly broke the silence.

"What the hell?" Tommy muttered, looking up in renewed alarm. Joel had heard it too and he moved quickly to the windows of the living room, pulling back the flower-print curtains and searching the residential street from which they had just come.

"Shit," Joel murmured under his breath. He spun away from the window and waved impatiently at Tommy. "There's more of 'em on the street. Must've heard the gunshots. We gotta go."

A glance through the living room window and Tommy could see a handful of figures loping down the street in their direction. He cursed under his breath and pushed the front door closed, hurrying to follow Joel down the hallway that lead from the living room to the kitchen. A backdoor with venetian blinds in disarray stood next to the refrigerator. Joel fumbled with the lock for a moment before he managed to open it.

The backyard was mercifully quiet. A long disused barbeque stood beside a picnic table and several folding lawn chairs. An unadorned wooden fence ran alongside the back end of the yard, but nothing separated it from the yards on either side. Pistol still held aloft, Joel turned left and began lightly jogging for the next house over. Now that they were outside again, Tommy could hear the unearthly screams and growls coming from the sick that were now beating at the front door of the house they had just left. He jogged quickly after Joel.

They crossed several yards and passed several houses before the sounds of the sick faded. Joel finally slowed at a yard with overlong grass and a covered back porch that attached to a two-story house with fading red paint. He stood and listened for a moment, and when he heard nothing, he mounted the steps to the back porch. The door was locked, but Joel scooped up a shovel that was leaning against the house's siding and jammed the leaf-shaped head into the side of the door near the handle and lock.

"Tommy, help me," he grunted, weariness sapping what little strength his one good arm still had. Tommy grabbed the shovel's handle as Joel threw his weight against it and together the two brothers pushed. The door groaned, squealed, then snapped, flying open with a spray of wood splinters as the socket housing the deadbolt broke under the leverage of the shovel. They strained for any sounds that might indicate the noise had roused anyone, sick or otherwise, within the house.

Nothing.

Joel blew out an exhausted sigh through his nose, relief plain on his face. "C'mon. Let's clear the place." He sounded nearly breathless, as if the fading adrenaline from the encounter with the two sick people had redoubled the fatigue that had already set in from a day of walking.

The house was small and did not take them long to clear. The front door had been neatly locked and the tops of several bookcases in the living room had bare spots amidst the dust where family photos had likely once stood. A white work truck stood in the driveway. Yet however orderly had been this family's flight, they did not appear to have returned. The two bedrooms upstairs still had tousled sheets and blankets that had likely been thrown off the night that hell had descended.

Tommy cleared the kitchen and dining room downstairs and eventually found Joel in the master bedroom at the top of the stairs. His brother's face looked haggard and gray as he was coming out of the master bathroom.

"All clear," Joel muttered.

"And downstairs," Tommy returned.

Joel nodded slowly. He gave the bedroom a final sweeping look, then abruptly sat down on the bed and swung his legs up, boots and all. He lay back gently, favoring his bandaged arm but nonetheless sinking heavily into the disarrayed sheets and pillows.

"You gonna sleep?" Tommy said. Outside, the sky was glowing orange with the setting sun.

"Gonna try," Joel sighed. He closed his eyes.

Tommy eyed his brother with concern, not moving from the doorway. "You don't wanna eat somethin' first?"

Joel shook his head and kept his eyes closed. "Honest, Tommy, I don't think I could keep anything down."

Tommy nodded. He could feel his own stomach curling in protest at its emptiness, but even so, the combination of fatigue and vague nausea at the memory of the dead businessman did not put him in a mood to eat. "Alright then," he replied. "Well, I'll see what I can find downstairs and bring somethin' up here. Just in case you get hungry in the middle of the night."

He started to turn away to head downstairs, but Joel abruptly opened his eyes and turned his head to look at his brother. "Tommy."

Tommy stopped, looking back with a hand still on the doorjamb.

Joel was quiet for a second. "Thanks," he said finally with a single nod.

Tommy frowned in grave acknowledgement. But after a second, he snorted lightly. "I just gotta shoot quicker next time, right?"

The barest hint of a smirk crept into Joel's cheeks as he closed his eyes again and turned his head away. "And conserve ammo, like I did," he added with heavy irony.

Smiling tiredly, Tommy shook his head and left Joel to sleep.

* * *

_October 3, 2013 – 10:26am_

It was mid-morning by the time Joel came downstairs. He walked slowly and gingerly, wincing whenever he moved the wrong way and keeping a hand on the wall to steady himself. All of yesterday, as they had made their way out of Leland on foot, Tommy had suspected his brother was in far more pain that he was willing to admit. Today confirmed that. Joel looked ten years older than he was.

"Jesus, Joel," Tommy said, looking up from a small breakfast table he was sitting at as Joel shuffled into the kitchen. Tommy rose quickly, but his brother waved him off, crossing the kitchen and sinking into a second chair at the table.

"I'm fine," Joel muttered roughly, cutting off the question on Tommy's lips.

Tommy's eyes narrowed and he bit back a retort. Yet he remained standing, brushing past Joel and moving to the kitchen counter, where a sizeable array of odds and ends had been gathered. Tommy had spent several hours the night previous going through the house, raiding cupboards for pills, first aid supplies, non-perishable food, and other useful gear. Whoever had lived here had kept only a sparse supply of first aid materials – Tommy had found only a single roll of gauze, an ace bandage, and a few sterile pads – but the number of pill bottles was voluminous. Tommy thumped down several bottles of ibuprofen, Tylenol, and Motrin in front of Joel.

"Take your pick, tough guy."

Joel made an annoyed sound under his breath, but did not protest.

"Doubt they'll do much more'n take the edge off," Tommy said, watching as Joel selected the ibuprofen. "I'll go out in a bit and see if any of the other houses have somethin' stronger. Plenty of folks who never throw out their pills after surgery. I had half a bottle of oxycodone sittin' on my shelf for years after I tore up my knee on that admin building job."

It vaguely occurred to Tommy that less than a day ago he had balked at the idea stealing a couple of guns. Yet now, outside the safety of the triage, breaking into abandoned houses felt oddly less objectionable.

Joel grunted lightly in acknowledgement, but abruptly twisted in his chair, sniffing the air. "What's that smell?"

Tommy gave a small smile. "Coffee."

Joel's eyes narrowed. "Like hell it is."

Tommy shrugged nonchalantly with a ghost of a grin. "Well, if you don't want any..."

His brother grimaced in pain as he tried to twist further to look Tommy full in the face. "Goddamn, Tommy. You're shovin' pills in front of me when you got coffee?"

"Coffee won't kill the pain."

"It'll help."

Tommy shook his head with a true grin now as he turned away from Joel to face the kitchen counter. He had found an old camp stove in the garage and a strainer and several gallon jugs of water in the kitchen. Although it wasn't a perfect setup by any means, he had placed a coffee filter and ground coffee into the strainer and poured boiling water through it. A half full pot of the stuff now sat gently steaming beside the camp stove.

Tommy poured two cups.

"Nicely done, little brother," Joel said appreciatively as Tommy set one of the cups in front of him. He immediately lifted it and began drinking.

Tommy smiled. That had felt almost normal. Like Joel had dropped in after work and was ribbing Tommy again for having shit coffee. Like they weren't brewing coffee through a strainer on a camp stove, in a house they had broken into, on a street filled with emptiness and the dead. Like Sarah wasn't gone.

The abruptness of that memory sobered Tommy with a stab of guilt and his smile faded. He had hoped Joel's exhaustion last night would have helped his brother sleep soundly, but in the bedroom beside Joel's, Tommy had woken more than once to the sounds of thrashing and muffled shouts next door. For his own part, Tommy had needed half a glass of the Jim Beam he had found above the refrigerator before sleep had finally taken him.

The two of them sat in silence for a good while – Joel sipping his coffee and Tommy absently cupping his own mug as he sat sideways on his chair, back against the kitchen wall. Neither of them had ever been the chatty sort, but now the silence between them was filled with discomfort, a reminder of the eggshells that Tommy had been walking around his brother since Sarah's death.

Tommy cleared his throat finally. "So, you given any thought to where we might go from here?"

Joel slowly lowered his coffee, eyes sinking to the kitchen table. After a moment, he shook his head and looked up. "No," he murmured. He drew a deep breath and sighed heavily, shaking his head again. "Honest, Tommy, I thought…I dunno. I didn't think it'd be this bad out here. I figured Leland was a disaster waitin' to happen, but I dunno now. At least there were people there. If there's anyone out here, we ain't seen 'em."

Tommy nodded in agreement. "I figured we'd at least see the army or somebody out here tryin' to get things under control."

"Maybe they're tryin' to clear out the cities first."

Tommy started to nod again, but instead shook his head and snorted in vague disbelief. "But where the hell is everyone? How we ever gonna find anyone in all this mess? Mom, dad? Aunt Janey? Meemaw and Grandpa Jim? Hell, I'd even like to know what happened to the likes of Tom Bertie and Ollie Hughes."

Joel's expression noticeably darkened at the mention of various family members and old work buddies. His gaze dropped again, first merely to the table, but slowly it slid to his left hand, to his left wrist, to the watch wrapped around it. With a jolt, Tommy noticed the watch for the first time. He recognized it. Of course. Sarah had been so smug when she had called him with the perfect idea for a birthday gift for her dad and convinced Tommy to drive her down to the local mall. He had even leant her $20 to supplement what she had saved for the watch already. Jesus. She must have given it to Joel the night she had died.

Again memories of that night flooded involuntarily back to Tommy. It was frightening how easy it was to suppress them in the midst of everything that had happened and was still happening. Frightening to think they could share moments of brief levity over coffee when Joel had lost a daughter less than a week ago.

Tommy swallowed and looked up at his brother from under heavy brows. "You know," he offered quietly, careful not to let his voice catch in his throat. "When this is all done, we can go back. Give her…give her a proper burial. Someplace nice. Somewhere she'd like."

Joel was silent a long time. He did not look up at Tommy, but it seemed like all the energy had drained from him, slowly slumping his shoulders and casting a wretched pallor over his face. Subtle muscles twitched around his eyes and mouth. For a second, Tommy wondered if Joel was fighting back tears.

Yet when Joel finally drew a deep breath, his jaw tightened and his lips pressed together. He looked up with a hard expression that raised the hairs on the back of Tommy's neck.

"I don't think it's ever gonna be done, Tommy."

And with that, he stood and shuffled out of the kitchen. His coffee sat forgotten on the table.

* * *

_October 3, 2013 – 1:05pm_

They did not speak the rest of the morning, save for when Tommy had to change Joel's bandages. It was an inexpert job. With only the sparse supplies they had carried from the triage and found in the house, Tommy had placed several sterile pads over the gunshot wound, then ended up wrapping Joel's shoulder in dishtowels and using the ace bandage to hold it all together. It would have to do until they could find something better.

After that though, they had each retired to different areas of the house. Now that it was daylight, Tommy had resumed scavenging the place to look for anything useful, but Joel had lain down on the living room couch in an effort to avoid inflaming his bandaged shoulder. A spy thriller from the house's small collection of books lay open on his chest, but mostly Joel had spent the morning dozing in and out. Tommy had seen him jerk awake more than once.

As the afternoon drew on, however, Tommy fixed them up some tomato soup and baked beans on the camp stove. Joel was eating his on the couch when Tommy entered the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room.

"Do you hear that?" he said slowly, looking up at the ceiling as if listening to something outside the house. Joel glanced up in surprise, dropping a spoonful of beans back into his bowl. He listened too.

Outside. A low, distant rumbling.

It was getting louder.

"What is that?" Joel muttered, his brow furrowing. A few more seconds and the sound grew clearer. "Chopper?"

_Whumpa whumpa whumpa whumpa._

"Holy _shit_," Tommy said suddenly. He dashed for the front door as Joel scrambled up from the couch. Together, they unlocked the deadbolt and jerked open the door. A quick glance up and down the street confirmed it was still abandoned and they poured out, thumping quickly down the front steps and out into the driveway, eyes strained skywards.

There it was! A helicopter, a Huey painted army green, was flying slowly over the neighborhood, following the direction of the street on which they stood. Tommy ran out into the middle of the street and began waving as the aircraft neared them. Joel joined him, placing a hand over his brow to shield against the glare of the sun.

_WHUMPA WHUMPA WHUMPA WHUMPA._

Tommy looked back at Joel and, as he did so, he noticed movement in front of a house several doors down from the home they had occupied. Three people were creeping warily out a front door – real people, ones who moved without the animalistic crouch of the sick. His eyes widening, Tommy began to look all around them. Doors were opening up and down the road and others were shuffling out onto the street as well, all looking towards the approaching helicopter. Maybe twenty people in all.

A bearded man clutching a hunting rifle was nearest to Tommy and Joel. Trailing him was a woman Tommy assumed to be the man's wife. They both looked at Tommy with wide eyes and open mouths, but after a second, they turned to stare at the helicopter rather than try to shout above the din of its walloping blades.

A loud speaker suddenly crackled to life from the helicopter, loud enough to be heard above the noise of its flight.

_Attention, attention. The military has set up a quarantine zone for survivors in Huntersville. Repeat, the military has set up a quarantine zone for survivors in Huntersville. We are discontinuing rescue missions for stranded residents. All private citizens are urged to make their way to Huntersville. Do not approach the infected. Do not attempt to enter Austin. Repeat, do not attempt to enter Austin._

The man with the beard looked back down at Tommy, confusion written across his face. "Why are they quarantining people who aren't sick?" he shouted above the noise. Tommy shook his head and held up his hands to indicate he knew no more than the man.

_Get back in your homes! Hey, look out!_

Tommy's head swiveled back to look at the helicopter as the voice over the loud speaker suddenly shifted from military formal to panicked alarm. A soldier perched on the edge of the helicopter's open side door was pointing further down the street and Tommy turned to look.

Infected were running into the street, drawn by the noise of the helicopter and loud speaker. Tommy even saw some crashing through a front room window, apparently having previously been trapped within the house. Amid the din of the helicopter's thrashing blades, they had not heard the screams that accompanied the approach of the sick. Now at least half a dozen were sprinting, crazed and ravenous, after various groups of people who had been drawn out of their homes by the sound of the aircraft. Three of them were galloping towards Tommy, Joel, and the couple with the hunting rifle.

Without hesitation this time, Tommy grappled to pull the revolver from his belt. To either side of him, he could see Joel raising his pistol and the bearded man lifting his rifle. Nearly at once, all three men fired. Two of the infected toppled forward immediately and the third followed a second later when the bearded man fired a second time.

In those few moments, the helicopter had already begun to draw away from the street and the noise it generated was fading as it moved into the distance. Eyes wide and nostrils flaring, the man with the rifle began swinging it around in all directions, the stock still couched against his shoulder.

"D'you see any more? Where are they? D'you see any?" he was saying rapidly.

"They're all up the street," Joel replied, pointing further up the road with his pistol. "I suggest we make ourselves scarce."

The man swung round with his rifle to stare down the barrel at Tommy and Joel. Terror was written plain across his face.

"Whoa now!" Joel said suddenly, instinctively bringing his own gun to bear on the man.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" the bearded man demanded, pointing with his rifle at the bandages covering Joel's shoulder.

"Nothin'!"

"That ain't fuckin' nothin'! You been bit?"

Tommy threw up both his hands and stepped between Joel and the man. "Hey now, let's just all calm down—"

"_Were you fuckin' bit?_"

In an instant all four people were shouting at once.

"What the hell are you doin'?"

"Randy, stop it!"

"What's wrong with him?!"

"He ain't bit! He ain't fuckin bit!"

"Tommy, outta the goddamn way!"

Absurdly, only the inhuman screams of the infected restored some measure of sanity to the panicked standoff. They all looked up as more of the sick began racing towards them, attracted by their shouting. Tommy glanced at the rushing infected and back at the bearded man, then shook his head violently.

"Screw it!" He turned and ran towards Joel, grabbing Joel's gun hand as he did so and jerking it downward so that Joel was no longer aiming at the bearded man. "_C'mon_, Joel!"

His brother looked surprised for a moment, then huffed out a breath and nodded hard. "Into the house," he growled, turning with Tommy.

Together they scrambled back up the driveway and past the white work truck parked there, pounding up the front steps and through the front door as fast as Joel could run. Tommy could hear the frenzied panting of the infected behind them and dared not even risk a look back lest it slow him down. They flew into the house, Joel leading and Tommy only inches behind him. Joel spun around, suddenly crying out in pain at the abrupt movement, but he grabbed the front door and slammed it closed. A second later, it jumped and thumped with the weight of bodies being thrown against it.

Joel backed away, staring at the door as Tommy put his back against it and sank to the floor, knees against his chest. Both stared at each other, breathing hard and fast.

Outside, wild fists pounded furiously against the door and fingernails scraped and scratched as the infected fought against the two inches of wood that separated them from their prey.

* * *

**Thanks to everyone for reading and especially to those who have taken the time to leave a review! These last two chapters and part of the next one have focused on the early days following the outbreak, but next update, look forward to getting a first glimpse at life after those early days. As before, I'm not able to update as frequently as I would like - so Follow the story if you want to be alerted when the next chapter is up. Thanks, all. :)**


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